by A. C. Cobble
“He deserved it, out in this,” claimed Duke, swatting ineffectively at the sleet that plonked down on his head.
“We’ll need good luck to find another ride,” said Sam as the carriage rumbled away. “Maybe another one of those silver coins and he would have waited?”
“Frozen hell,” muttered the peer. Frustrated, he turned to the apothecary’s shop and stomped toward it, nearly losing his footing on the slick cobblestones. “Watch that. They’ll be covered in ice in a turn of the clock.”
She stepped carefully past him and moved quickly, hoping to get out of the frigid air. Then, she paused, staring aghast at the door of the shopfront.
“What’s wrong?” groused Duke, catching up. “Hammer the door. Let’s see if we can… Oh.”
On the door was a small parchment slip, the sort the watchmen left. It was legible, but globs of sleet were accumulating on it and melting, causing the script to run. Sam peered close, squinting in the darkness,
“Attention to the family of the apothecary known as Rian. Please visit the judiciary at Garden Street for information on the disposition of the body and assets.”
“Frozen hell!” she cried. “The man is dead!”
Hands stuffed into his long coat, Duke leaned around her, reading the note as if he couldn’t believe it.
She stalked away from the door, looking up and down the dark street. Houses, bakeries, a grocer, not even one proper pub or anywhere else that had a welcoming light on late in the evening. At a far corner, she saw a bundled figure disappear into a stairwell, but otherwise, the street was dead quiet, not another soul moving about on the awful, dreary night.
“I knew I should have brought that drink,” she muttered to herself.
Then, she jumped, nearly flopping down on the slick cobblestones when a sharp crack split the air. It was far too loud in the silence. Turning, she saw a gaping hole where the door to the apothecary once stood. Duke was disappearing inside.
“Did you just break that door!” she called. “You can’t do that. The watch has sealed the building!”
“Well, when they come to arrest me, I hope they bring a proper hot toddy,” he called from inside.
Cursing, she hurried after him. As she passed the threshold, a pale blue glow bathed the room. Duke was shaking a glass globe of fae light. He held it high, the swirling fae sparks gleaming with anger at their disturbed slumber.
“Damn things hate the cold even more than we do,” complained Duke. “This room looks just like I remember it. Want to collect the jar of those… What did you say they were? Lizard penises? You know, the ones that look like pickles?”
“If you like,” she said. “From what I saw this morning, you need all the help you can get.”
“From what you… spirits forsake it! It was cold, and I was still drunk!”
“Yes, I’m sure you were,” she said, passing around him, ignoring his blustering protests, and walking to the back of the room. “Come on. I want to see what’s behind the curtain.”
They passed into a small, dark room, the apothecary’s inner sanctum. They found row after row of obscurely labeled cabinets. The containers were stacked floor-to-ceiling with a simple ladder propped against the wall to reach the ones on top. She opened one and smelled it. Nutmeg. Nothing suspicious, but if each cabinet was as full as the first, it was a veritable fortune in spices, herbs, tinctures, mixtures, and minerals.
“It appears the man was doing quite well,” she remarked.
“You don’t remember what that bandit charged us?” groused Duke. “Look. Another door at the back.”
She led the way into a narrow, cabinet-lined hallway.
“Just more storage,” muttered Duke, holding up the light behind her.
At the end of the hall was another door. She tried the latch and found it was unlocked, so she pushed it wide. As she stepped into the room, an ice-cold chill swept over her body which had nothing to do with the weather outside.
“Frozen hell,” muttered Duke from behind.
On the floor, a chalk-drawn pentagram spread six yards across. The five points of the star were marked with small, black candles. Duke lowered the glass globe of light, and she saw the interior of the pentagram reflected with tacky blood colored purple in the blue light of the fae.
“It’s the same spirit-forsaken scene we saw in Harwick,” muttered Duke.
Not moving farther inside, she glanced at the walls, back at the floor, and rubbed her face with both of her hands.
“H-How… What does this mean?” stammered Duke.
“It’s a message,” she said. “A message to us.”
“That can’t be…” he trailed off. “No, you’re right. Who else would recognize this? But the man who did the one in Harwick is dead, isn’t he?”
“The hound is dead, but the master is not,” she said. “Is the message a warning, do you think, telling us to stop our investigation?”
“We practically have,” argued Oliver. “We have no leads and no clue as to who could be behind all of this. Frankly, if someone was following our progress, they could easily see we don’t know where to look.”
“This blood is fresh,” mentioned Sam. “It was spilled today, just a few turns ago.”
“It’s certainly an odd coincidence,” he admitted, his hands still shoved deep in his coat pockets.
“Duke, your vision,” she said. “What if it’s not a coincidence? What if those we pursue sensed what happened and are now acting to thwart us? What if they knew, or at least suspected, we might come here? They killed the apothecary to prevent us scrying for your mother. They want to show us they have control, that they know us, and that we know nothing.”
Beside her, Duke ran his hand back over his hair, checking the leather tie. “If that was the message, I can’t say they’re wrong, but why would they not just kill us instead? It’d draw attention, I know, but if they believe we have some lead on them, I get the impression these people would not hesitate. There’s nothing they will stop at, Sam, so why a message and not a direct attack?”
“You weren’t in the palace,” reminded Sam. “You were at my flat during the vision. They could sense what was happening in the underworld, but they didn’t know where you were in our world. If they could tell you were looking for your mother and learned she was not dead, it’s logical that we would come here next. It’s the only apothecary I know in Westundon that sells the supplies we need.”
“The blood is a few turns old,” mused Duke. “That means the apothecary was killed shortly after we returned to the palace, a place anyone would be certain to watch if they were trying to find me.”
“You’d be easy to find there but are well protected by your brother’s men,” remarked Sam. “They wouldn’t… Oh.”
“Frozen hell,” growled Duke.
He turned and drew his basket-hilted broadsword. She unsheathed her two kris daggers, cursing herself for not bringing Thotham’s spear. It had seemed a bit much to visit an apothecary, but now, she wished she had every weapon she could get her hands on.
They waited a long silent moment. Beside her, Duke shifted uncomfortably. Like her, she guessed he could hear the slow trod of heavy feet in the front room. Like her, she imagined he didn’t enjoy being in the small, cramped, windowless stock room while unknown enemies assembled outside and pinned them in.
She leaned close to him and whispered, “Should we charge out?”
Duke looked sick. He whispered back, “Is that panting?”
Grimacing, she realized it was. “Wolfmalkin.”
“Like in Derbycross?”
She waved for him to shush. With an unknown number of wolfmalkin lurking outside, it wasn’t the appropriate time for a long, involved discussion on the things. At least his broadsword would do some good against them.
Duke opened his mouth to ask another, likely foolish, question, and she shook her head sharply. It wasn’t the right time to do anything but attack. Wolfmalkin in the tight confines of the storeroom
would be nearly impossible to avoid, and once the ferocious creatures got a hold of them, they’d be finished.
Without waiting for input, she stalked to the doorway and peered out into the cabinet-lined corridor, seeing nothing. She heard a snort, and a shiver went down her spine. It wasn’t just one or two of the wolfmalkin moving outside in the front room. There were several of them.
Behind her, she heard a pained gasp.
She spun, seeing Duke struggling with an insubstantial shadow that appeared fuzzy in the waving light of the fae. He stabbed hopelessly behind himself with his broadsword, catching nothing but air.
She knew his steel would be worthless against the shade that was throttling him. Shades, she amended, as she saw more shadows emerging from the broken pentagram deeper in the room.
The broken pentagram.
It wasn’t a message.
It was a trap.
“Frozen hell,” she groaned.
The Cartographer XIII
Bitter cold wrapped around his neck and his head was jerked back. It felt like an iron bar, left out in the winter chill, was pressing against his throat, sealing it, slowly crushing it. He whipped his broadsword around and stabbed back, striking nothing. He stomped a foot down on the wooden floor and then back kicked at nothing.
He dropped the globe of fae light, and it bounced on the floor. He kicked it with his flailing feet, and the lights swirled as the globe rolled into the corner.
“Frozen hell,” Sam cursed.
She then sprang at him, thrusting over his shoulder with one of her sinuous kris daggers. The sharp steel plunged past him, and the constricting pressure on his neck vanished.
“See to the wolfmalkin,” she hissed between gritted teeth. “I’ll try to close the portal.”
“T-The what?” he stammered, glancing back and seeing wild shadowy forms spilling into the room from… from nowhere.
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. Within the blood-soaked area of the pentagram, shadows were blooming with alarming speed.
Out in the hallway, a board creaked under a heavy foot, and he heard a snarl, as if an animal was alerting its pack it’d found their prey. Adjusting his grip on his basket-hilted broadsword, he hoped Sam knew what she was doing. He stepped out of the doorway into the narrow corridor. Flat, wooden walls lined one side, and row after row of the apothecary’s storage cabinets lined the other.
In front of him, illuminated only by the faint glow of the fae light from the room behind, loomed a giant shape. At least a yard taller than himself, it stooped as it entered the hallway. In its hands, he could see a massive battle axe, similar to what he recalled in the sorcerous chamber beneath Dalyrimple Manor.
“Where do they get those things made?” he whispered under his breath.
The creature in front of him growled low in its throat, its breath coming fast through its large nostrils, its teeth clacking as he imagined the shadowy shape’s mouth opening in hunger. The wolfmalkin blocked the entire opposite end of the corridor. In the storeroom behind, he heard Sam’s curses and scrambling as she was locked in a battle with the silent shades pouring through the pentagram.
“Good luck swinging that axe in here,” Oliver told the creature in front of him. Then, he lunged forward, thrusting his broadsword.
The wolfmalkin, surprised at the direct attack, barely moved to parry with its battle axe. Oliver’s broadsword pierced its torso, sinking deep into the muscled flesh, bouncing off a rib, and sliding into the thing’s heart. It uttered a helpless whimper, whining like a kicked dog, and slumped to the side, its battle axe falling heavily on the wooden floor.
Oliver smiled, smoothly sliding his weapon free.
In the doorway to the main room, he heard a growl and looked up to see three pairs of glowing yellow eyes all clustered together, crouched to look into the hallway at him. He knew that the light coming from behind him defined his silhouette perfectly, and his shadow bounced in front of him as he scrambled back, watching the dark shape of a second wolfmalkin duck into the corridor and step over the corpse of the first.
This one held up its axe, ready to fight.
The Priestess XII
Pouring like water from a burst dam, shades spilled into the room, appearing within the circle of the pentagram and stepping out where the barrier was broken. She had to repair it, to seal the circle to trap the shades inside and then figure out a way to deactivate it. To complicate matters, she had to get through half-a-dozen shades with more appearing every breath.
Spinning her twin kris daggers in her hands, she advanced slowly, lashing out at the chimerical shapes dancing in the low light radiating from the fae globe. The shadows dissipated as she struck them, only cool patches of air giving evidence that they ever existed. For each one she banished back to the underworld with her inscribed daggers, another appeared, and while she could barely sense the shapes as she slayed them, she could definitely feel it when they struck her.
A solid blow to her shoulder sent her reeling to the side. She scrambled to stay on her feet and kicked back instinctively, her foot catching nothing. A shade grasped her leg and jerked it up, knocking her off balance. She tumbled across the floor and sprang back to her feet, slashing her daggers wildly, not taking time to even look for what she was attacking, trusting that if she moved fast enough over a wide enough area, she’d hit something.
A glancing blow struck her back, and she dropped, spinning on one heel with her kris held out straight. Cool air kissed her face as the shadow evaporated. She lurched back up, arms wind-milling, fighting closer to the edge of the pentagram.
Chalk outlined the pattern filled with blood.
She had no chalk on her, but she did have some of the other ingredient — blood. If she could spill her blood within the design of the pentagram, she could sever the bridge to the underworld and have a chance to seal the circle.
“Duke!” she shouted. “I need chalk. Look in the cabinets!”
“What?” he cried back incredulously.
“Get me chalk!” she barked.
Then, in the corner of the room where Duke had dropped the globe of fae light, one by one, the fae began to extinguish. A shade crouched over the globe, reaching an insubstantial hand through the glass, feeling blindly as the life and death spirits could not see each other. But the shade could feel the fae, and when it did, it pinched them, killing them. She gaped at the vanishing light until solid knuckles from an invisible fist socked her in the jaw.
The Cartographer XIV
“Duke, I need chalk. Look in the cabinets!”
“What?” he shouted back, biting off a curse as the second wolfmalkin stepped over the body of the first and thrust down the hallway with the head of its giant battle axe. The corridor wasn’t wide enough for a proper swing, but the sharp hook of the axe blade, pushed by the massively strong creature, was certain to make a far larger hole in his body than Oliver was interested in having.
“Get me chalk!” screamed Sam.
Then, the lights began to go out.
The wolfmalkin, in a rush of creaking floorboards and hungry grunts, charged.
Oliver crouched to the side, and the huge battle axe smashed into a cabinet above him. Debris rained down — bits of wood, glass, and dried herbs. Ignoring it, Oliver stabbed into the blackness, trusting to luck and grinning maniacally when he felt his blade impact flesh.
He lurched to the other side of the corridor just in time to avoid the heavy battle axe crashing down onto the floor, splintering the boards but missing his body. He stabbed again into the darkness and then jumped back, this time feeling the air as the battle axe smashed against the wall.
Thrusting and retreating, Oliver waged blind war on the giant creature in front of him. To his advantage, he could hardly attack without hitting the huge monster. To his disadvantage, if the wolfmalkin caught him with the axe, he was probably dead.
Whimpering and snarling, the wolfmalkin fell back after Oliver landed another thrust. He couldn’
t tell where he’d struck it, but each blow drew blood and caused pain. Like the wolf it was bastardized from, it had reacted by lashing out, and when that didn’t work, it retreated in fear.
Behind it, he heard a roar and knew the third creature had entered the narrow corridor.
Lurching forward, he tried to race ahead and drive the wolfmalkin farther back, but he tripped on broken floorboards and pitched head first into the fur-covered legs of the thing.
Cursing, he scrambled away, dodging to the side, thinking the axe would could down on him. He felt the beast’s thick, muscle-bound arm against his face as he shimmied along the exterior wall of the corridor. When that arm lifted away, he dropped onto his bottom.
Above him, there was a huge crack and the sounds of shattering brick.
The wolfmalkin had swung with the spiked butt-end of its battle axe, punching through the wooden interior and brick exterior walls of the building. A slender finger of silver light poked in from outside, illuminating the shape of the wolfmalkin.
Snarling in rage, it tugged on the axe, the haft stuck through the broken wall.
Jumping up, Oliver slammed his broadsword into the unprotected stomach of the creature and twisted it as he yanked it out, a torrent of blood gushing from the wounded beast.
It raised its head, it howled in anger, finally freeing its battle axe, but it fell back, and Oliver blinked. A hole the size of two fists was left in the wall. The dim light from outside spilled into the corridor. The wounded wolfmalkin stumbled away, the shapes of others clustered in the hall behind it.
One of them reached around its companion’s neck and tore its claws across the injured pack mate’s throat, ripping the flesh wide open. Gurgling helplessly, its yellow eyes reflecting panic and pain, the wolfmalkin collapsed.
The two behind it shoved the body aside and squeezed past, their massive shapes crunching the cabinets beside them as they forced their way around their dead peers.
